Sea Dreams
by Starchild524
Summary: Daine POV. In response to Seanfhocal challenge 14, "Jaded."


Author's Notes: A very abstract late-night fantasy of mine, involving little concrete connection to actual Tortall fanfic. Weighty character death, unwarranted Jon-bashing, tenuous characterization (I actually wouldn't think Daine would... give up, not like this). Angst turned spiritual. All stretching the principles of logical fanfic, but I had a dream about Daine as a mermaid and it wouldn't let go.   
  
Now, if you take an immortal's shape you can't change back, right? An easy, painless out for a shapeshifter disenchanted with life. Hm....  


Many thanks to all my fellow Rogues at the Dove. :D You guys spoil me. 

Disclaimer: Daine, Numair, Jon, and the premise of Tortall all belong to Tammy. This fic, however, is definitely mine. *uncomfortable* And you should all go read "Linnea" in Bruce Coville's _Half Human._

Sea Dreams  
  
_Seabird I have seen you fly above the pilings  
I am smiling at your circles in the air  
I will come and sit by you while he lies sleeping  
Fold your fleet wings I have brought some dreams to share  
A dream that you love someone  
A dream that the wars are done  
A dream that you tell no one but the grey sea  
They'll say that you're crazy  
And the dream of a baby  
Like a promise to be free  
Children laughing out to sea  
All his sea dreams  
Come to me_

"Dawntreader" by Joni Mitchell  
  
  
She stood at the edge of the sea, hands open and face tilted back, eyes closed, to feel the cool evening breeze slide over her face and through her hair. The sea was calm, peaceful, waves folding gently over one another. The sky above was a delicate twilight blue laced with long, thin ribbons of cloud, pearly overhead and stained rose in the west where the sun sank beneath the waves like a great gold coin, its last rays of light skimming across the water. Sea and sky were infinite and everything was beginning.  
  
She was alone. The man she had loved was dead, would have been alive had the King they served cared to prevent it. _I'm sorry, Daine_, he had told her with that sober command she had so long revered, sapphire eyes shining with what she had thought sincerity. _But it was necessary_. Soon after that she had stopped caring. Humans fought their wars and killed each other incessantly, making the mud run red. She now had no one to fight by her side, no one to fight for. Anger gave way to bitterness, finally alienation from the society she had thought herself indelibly part of for years. She walked through the camp and saw not brave men and women fighting for the realm, but mud and ice and killing. It made her sick to stay.   
  
Even the People seemed farther away. Perhaps her emptiness repelled them where they had once been drawn to her cheer and love. Maybe she simply stopped caring about them, too.  
  
She might have left humans to live among her friends in the forest, but even the familiar soft, dark earth and fragrant pines gave no comfort. Nothing from her old life did. She had simply to escape, to slough every burden. And so she came to the sea. It was farthest from humankind, it was as infinite and deep as it was remote, another world in itself. Nothing would find her again.  
  
She stood on the shore and inched forward, slowly, until her toes were submerged in the frothing surf. The wind whipped her hair as she raised her arms up in parallel arcs, up to the silken blue arch above. She closed her eyes again and breathed in the sea spray, listened to the surf, felt the wind. Let her feet leave the ground, clothes falling empty to the sand.  
  
She soared out over the water, speeding high above through the brisk air, snowy feathers gold-touched in the dying sun. The wind rushed all around her, through each feather, and she felt alive as the sparkling waves fell away beneath her. Other gulls arced around her, their cries filling the air. She flew out to sea, leaving the shore and her old life far behind. Streaks of cloud arched overhead in a great vaulted architecture. Her heart tightened. _But you cannot fly forever. You must come down eventually._   
  
Sweeping back her wings, she dove, slicing down through the spray-washed air. Down towards the waves.  
  
She wanted to feel her human body one last time. Mid-dive, she changed, reclaiming lithe limbs, and brought her hands together overhead to break into the water with a great splash, slipping beneath, letting the sea wrap around her. Letting go of any pose, she simply let herself drift through the veil of bubbles streaming around her toward the surface. She floated down through the green waters, upright in the water, away from the gentle fingers of sunlight reaching down to her own limp arms.   
  
The she arched back, and back, opening her arms wide to embrace the sea, and at last turned over to plummet down and down, through slender ribbons of light and lacy sheens of bubbles, into the sea's depths. She dove, arms over her head and brought together in a point, as the water caressed her newly streamline form.   
  
_Don't fight. Just let it flow._   
  
Down and down and still deeper. She lost all sense of time and place; there was only the water around her. She felt the water streaming around her, down her outstretched arms, down her back and torso and legs, across her face and closed eyelids. Slowly, like one waking from a dream, she let her eyes open. The light was thinning as she dove, becoming lost in the deep. There was nothing in the world but the soft aqua surrounding her, the silken water that clothed her. She felt herself being cleansed, leaving all pain and danger behind, all mistakes and disappointments.   
  
_They'll never reach me again._   
  
She felt herself forgetting. Losing herself to the sea, sinking into its depths and accepting the water and the stories it told. Now voices reached her, ancient and heavenly sea-songs humans heard of only in legend. The voices wove together, wrapping around her, drawing her more fully into the sea.   
  
_This is your home now._   
  
She was grateful, so relieved that she expected tears to stream down her face - but here, she didn't know if they could any longer.   
  
She stopped falling, stopped sinking, came slowly to a stop.   
  
She was resting on the sandy bottom, rippled by time and current, coral and seaweed growing everywhere in an underwater forest. Fishes darted through the water, little shadows in and out of bigger ones. Her lungs no longer sought air, and she knew without examination that she had forsaken her human self, knew without looking that she was clothed below the waist in glittering emerald scales.   
  
She pushed herself off the bottom and floated slowly upward, flicking just enough power through her tail to keep her upright, and reached her arms up through the turquoise waters, up to the watery sunlight above. Felt the sea around her, absorbed its peace. Closed her eyes, and began to drift again. 


End file.
